Shortly after the death of Mr. Frederick Ferris Thompson in 1899, Mrs. Thompson wrote a letter in 1902 to the publisher of the Ontario County Times (now the Daily Messenger) announcing that she wanted to provide “a safe, roomy and well-equipped hospital for Ontario County people” as a memorial to her husband.

Mrs. Thompson purchased the James McKechnie residence and a lot of six acres on North Main Street, south of the current Wood Library, for $20,000. This site had been the original location of the Ontario Female Seminary. There was some consideration given to converting the McKechnie mansion into a hospital, but the architect hired to design the hospital found it unsuitable for this purpose. The McKechnie mansion was torn down to make way for the new hospital.

The new F.F. Thompson Hospital was dedicated on June 14, 1904, and started admitting patients in September 1904. At that time there were six members of the medical staff and 17 employees. The building was designed by Frances R. Allen of Boston, and erected and equipped at a cost of $200,000. The new hospital was built of stone in the Italian-Renaissance style. The only wood used in the building was in the doors, window casings and floors. The upper two floors of this three-story structure were outfitted with 32 beds. A ward bed cost $7 a week, and a private room with ordinary nursing cost between $10 and 25 a week.

Mrs. Thompson continued to donate money for additional projects for the hospital until her death in 1923. In 1907, an annex to the building was erected to house the care of contagious diseases. In 1908, a Nurses’ Training School was built to the rear of the hospital that provided a three-year school of nursing program, which lasted until 1931. In 1909, a county bacteriological laboratory was constructed on the hospital grounds, which was the first of its kind in the nation. In 1922, a maternity wing was added to the hospital in memory of Mrs. Thompson’s sister Abigail Clark Williams.

The first major renovations to the F.F. Thompson Hospital on North Main Street were proposed when a $250,000 fund drive was announced in January 1949. The hospital could no longer provide the highest standard of service unless remodeling and improvement of the building and facilities were undertaken. By 1953, these renovations, including a new surgical suite, emergency and fracture room, maternity building, radiology unit, kitchen and cafeteria were completed. The total number of beds at the hospital was now 112. Additional renovations in 1958 brought the number of beds to 130.

In 1962, George M. Ewing was selected as chairman of a long-range planning committee that began working on plans for improvement and expansion of the Thompson Hospital facilities. As a result of this committee’s work and its architectural firm of Rogers and Butler, the Thompson Hospital’s Board of Directors reviewed four alternatives in January 1965. These included (1) building a new 125-bed acute care hospital on a new site and converting the hospital on North Main Street into a 60-bed extended care facility; (2) constructing on a new site a new 125-bed acute care hospital with an extended care wing attached to the hospital; (3) erecting on a new site a 60-bed extended care facility and remodeling the hospital on North Main Street; and (4) attaching an extended care facility to a remodeled hospital on North Main Street. Costs for these alternatives ranged from $1.4 million to $3.5 million.

Page 2 of 2 - In August 1965, the Thompson Board of Directors authorized the purchase of 30 acres at the corner of Parrish Street and West Street. It was owned by Howard Samuels and included some of the property that was part of the former Brigham Hall. As part of this proposal, the board opted to construct a 60-bed extended care facility on the site and renovate the hospital on North Main Street. However, by September 1966, the Board revised their plans and opted to construct a new 101-bed acute care hospital on the new site and renovate the hospital on North Main into an extended care facility. This change in plans was mainly due to the fact that the funds that the board had anticipated from the federal government for an extended care facility would not be given a high priority and funds for replacing obsolete acute care facilities would be given a high priority. Also, expansion on the new site in the future would be much easier. The estimated cost of the new acute care hospital and renovation was $4.4 million.

In June 1967, the board authorized a fund drive to raise $800,000 to help pay for the new acute care hospital. By the end of 1967, this drive had raised close to $1.1 million. This money — along with monies from the hospital’s capital fund, a federal aid grant, and money borrowed by the hospital — would help pay for the new hospital.

Construction on the new hospital began in the summer of 1968 with an anticipated completion in 1969. However, due to unforeseen delays in construction that included union worker strikes, the new hospital was not completed until 1971. During this construction period, the Thompson hospital administrator, Miss Anne M. McKevitt, retired and Mr. Anthony J. Raguso was hired as the new administrator. Additionally, plans to renovate the old hospital on North Main into an extended care facility were abandoned and a new extended care facility was constructed adjacent to the new hospital. It opened in the fall of 1971. The cost of construction for the new hospital had risen to nearly $6 million.

In July 1971, the new F.F. Thompson Hospital opened its doors to the public. The hospital was designed with the patient’s needs and comfort having top priority. The four-story structure had 101 beds on the second and third floors with administrative offices, admitting and business office, lobby and other service facilities on the first floor. The ground floor — actually below ground on the south side — had the cafeteria, kitchen and records facility.

Now known as Thompson Health since 1999, it is now comprised of affiliated health-related corporations that are committed to providing an integrated health care system to promote and support the health and well-being of the greater Canandaigua area. The corporations include F. F. Thompson Hospital, M.M. Ewing Continuing Care Center, FFTH Properties and Services, F.F. Thompson Foundation, and FFT Senior Communities. Thompson is an affiliate of the University of Rochester Medical Center and provides quality health care to more than 165,000 residents and their families in the Finger Lakes region.